Queer Romanians Are Starting a Revolution

Romania, 1996: Mariana Cetiner became Europe’s only lesbian to be sentenced to prison — for three years — merely because of her sexual orientation. Until 2001, Romania had criminalized homosexuality, even between consenting adults. During the 1990s, dozens of gay people were persecuted, a shameful history with deep repercussions even today. As writer Adrian Schiop put it, “Gays are still hidden; they engage in fake marriages, just now there’s less excuses to do so.” Schiop’s novel, Soldiers. Story from Ferentari, made waves when it came out in 2014. Noted art curator Valentina Iancu, conferring about the situation with Schiop, goes even further, claiming that due to years of being illegal as a community, “no queer identity can completely take shape in today’s Romania.”

Fast-forward to 2016, two decades after Cetiner’s sentence. On a sunny November day, the LGBTQ+ community in Bucharest marched on the streets under the slogan “God Doesn’t Do Politics.” There are banners all over the place, joyful faces, lots of media, volunteers organizing the crowd, different chants being heard from all around. Two completely different pictures, which show the evolution of a community still facing challenges, but capable of mobilizing in difficult times.

Seen from far away, Europe looks like a positive example when it comes to the issue of LGBTQ+ rights. For years now, the “old continent” has taken the lead in legalizing gay marriage and ensuring LGBTQ+ citizens are treated with respect. Going back to the 1960s and ’70s, we see the development of an LGBTQ+ movement in the Netherlands; in the ’80s, countries such as Denmark begin legalizing civil unions for same-sex couples, while during the 2000s, Belgium, Spain, and Sweden granted marriage equality for all.

However, this is not the whole story. In Eastern Europe, LGBTQ+ rights remain a contested territory, the place where nationalist discourse blends with political homophobia and Euroskepticism. Homosexual is still often seen as a cosmopolitan, imported, and colonizing identity. Moreover, conservative American groups have found fertile ground there to promote their ideology against LGBTQ+ people here, forging strong alliances with indigenous right-wing movements.

In 2004 and 2005, the mayor of Warsaw, Lech Kaczyński, banned scheduled Pride events. In 2012, the powerful Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, having a supermajority in Parliament, changed the country’s constitution in order to ban same-sex marriage, making the traditional family one of the core tenets of his so-called illiberal regime. In 2013, right after joining the European Union (EU), Croatia held a referendum to ban gay marriage in its constitution, with over 65 percent of voters casting a ballot in favor of the initiative. In 2014, a similar popular vote was held in Slovakia. Despite a low turnout, the whole process led to the country’s constitution being changed, institutionalizing the ban on same-sex marriages. In 2015, a referendum to legalize gay marriage in Slovenia was rejected by voters.

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In all these cases, Liberty Council and Alliance Defending Freedom — anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups, according to the Southern Law Poverty Center — were involved in campaigning against equal rights. In Croatia, ADF signed a letter in support of the ban on gay marriage, while in Slovakia and Romania, both Liberty Council and ADF submitted briefs to the constitutional courts of those countries in support of the so-called traditional family.

For the past two years, Romania has been involved in a similar national debate about changing the constitution to ban same-sex marriage. A group of religiously affiliated organizations called the Coalition for Family, with backing from the powerful Orthodox Church, managed to collect 2.7 million signatures in favor of an initiative to change the country’s basic law. However, the technical procedures have been prolonged by local politicians who publicly endorse the proposed change but clearly avoid putting such an initiative to the ballot. The initiative was approved by the Chamber of Deputies on May 9 of this year, and now awaits a final vote in the Senate.

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The whole process has taken so long that many proponents of changing the constitution have become jaded. The debate has turned into an issue of modernity and the future of Romania. The public discourse has taken shape as two sides, one pictured as progressive, modernizing, European, urban, and middle-class, and the other as backwards, Orthodox, and antidemocratic. The class issue and the generational clash are obvious, and define a cleavage meant to pit citizens against one another. Some might argue it has to do with postmaterialist values, wherein those with more resources can afford to defend ideas, whereas poorer citizens find refuge in spiritual beliefs.

The LGBTQ+ community, however, has been witnessing a revival after a long period of apathy. For the first time, virtually all of society is debating the role of minorities in the fragile Romanian democracy. Choreographer Paul Dunca is one of the pioneers of the queer scene in Romania, through his monthly queer parties and shows such as “The Institute of Change,” based on stories from the transgender community. In telling me about recent developments, Dunca says, “The whole debate about changing the constitution has put the spotlight on the LGBTQ+ community, forcing Romanians to choose, either for or against.”

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For the past few years, a queer scene has been taking shape; more young people are coming out, more protests are happening. Transgender director Patrick Brăila’s short movie Abreast was featured in different parts of the country and received positive reviews. Admina is a vocal Romanian queer DJ and producer from a working-class background. “In the public arena, due to propaganda from the Orthodox Church, the LGBTQ+ topic was covered negatively, but we have also seen a strong response from the community, transforming the debate about changing the constitution into an opportunity to raise our voices,” she tells me.

Activists and citizens have also increased mobilization efforts surrounding LGBTQ+ rights over the last two years. The last two Bucharest Prides saw a bump in participation, with over 2,500 people going out in the streets to ask for equal rights for all. Political marches such as the aforementioned “God Doesn’t Do Politics” event have become more common, while more recently, in October of this year, hundreds of Romanians went out into the streets to ask for civil unions to be legalized. The smaller Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca also witnessed its first Pride event this year.

“The local community expressed solidarity, so 1,000 people gathered to exercise their freedom of assembly and ask for equal rights and respect for all,” says Lucian Dunăreanu, one of the organizers of Cluj Pride. In the eastern city of Iași, a new LGBTQ+ group called Rise OUT was born in the past year. When Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who refused to perform gay marriages after the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision Obergefell v. Hodges, visited Iași on her Romanian tour — organized by the Coalition for Family and Liberty Council — 30 members of Rise OUT were present in the audience and silently protested her presence there. The two major LGBTQ+ organizations of Romania, ACCEPT and MozaiQ, have intensified their advocacy efforts and community work in the past two years as well.

In social movements, social scientists talk about the role of a shifting political opportunity structure, which gives certain groups momentum to advance their cause. The debate around changing the Romanian constitution and banning gay marriage has given the LGBTQ+ community in Romania the perfect boost to build up a common identity and advance its cause. The queer cultural scene is slowly building up. Social media tools such as Facebook have allowed local activists to mobilize and take their messages further, and politicians have had to talk openly about the LGBTQ+ community and its needs. More is left to be done, as transgender people still face hurdles in terms of transitioning, HIV-prevention programs are scarce, and bullying in schools remains a major issue. However, there’s no question that we are witnessing a queer revolution in Romania — or, as our people might put it, that queers are turning thorns into a mass movement.

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Vlad Levente Viski is a Romanian queer activist and president of community-based LGBTQ+ organization MozaiQ. He has studied political science in Los Angeles and Budapest, with an emphasis on the LGBT movement in Romania after 2001. He has written pieces for The Advocate, Vice Romania and Gay Star News. In 2017, he worked on the exhibition “SAVAGED pINK. A history of 90s gay media” at the ODD project space in Bucharest.

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